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"Why? Hermione, it should be you and Harry going. You're way more useful than I am."
The moment he heard that, Neville blurted it out.
"There's practically nothing you don't know."
Hermione hadn't earned her know-it-all reputation for nothing. She knew far more than the rest of them, even though they had all grown up in the wizarding world.
In almost any situation, she could always find the right spell to deal with it.
"Listen, Neville..." Hermione said calmly. "You and Harry are the strongest out of all of us when it comes to real combat."
If Hermione was the one with the greatest store of knowledge among them, then Harry and Neville were the strongest in actual combat.
That's right, actual combat.
After receiving extra lessons from the professors, Harry had begun to truly show just how astonishing his talent was. His learning speed was not exactly fast, but he improved at an absurd rate.
As for Neville, he had a natural combat instinct. A lot of the time, he was basically imitating Dudley's fighting style, just without the same power.
There was also Malfoy, of course.
But he was already unconscious.
As for Ron, that clearly was not the area where he excelled. He had a role that suited him better in other situations...
"In terms of knowledge, you're not actually below me. Especially you, Harry. You've been studying in secret this whole time, haven't you?"
When he was called out, Harry scratched his head awkwardly.
He really had been studying in secret. More and more people were calling Dudley D, and that had started making Harry feel a strange sense of crisis.
'I was clearly the first one.'
'I'm clearly his best friend.'
It was not that he did not want Dudley to be popular.
It was just that something strange inside him was stirring things up.
Ron's eyes widened as he looked at Harry in utter shock.
'Aren't we always eating together, training together, and hanging out together? How were you secretly studying and I had no idea?'
Hermione went on,
"Harry, Neville, from here on, it's up to you. But don't push yourselves too hard. I think Dudley will be here soon."
Harry asked,
"But if the two of us drink the potion, then what's Dudley going to do?"
"Dudley will definitely figure something out, because he's Dudley!"
Hermione answered without the slightest doubt.
'Yeah. After all, he's Dudley. He'll definitely find a way.'
"Mm!"
Harry and Neville exchanged a look and nodded hard.
So the two of them split the potion between them and, after drinking it, stepped through the wall of fire.
Almost at the same instant, an invisible figure slipped in with them.
It was an empty room, with nothing inside except a mirror placed right at the center.
There was no door at the far side.
That meant this was the last room.
'Maybe we can finish the test before Big D gets here.'
That thought rose in Harry's mind without warning.
"Harry... this mirror? Come look at this!"
A sudden cry interrupted his thoughts. Neville was standing in front of the mirror, staring fixedly at the reflection inside it.
Harry walked over and recognized the mirror at once.
It was the very same one he had seen during Christmas break.
The Mirror of Erised...
"I saw my parents! They... they've come back!"
Neville's face was overflowing with emotion, almost to the point of tears.
"Listen, Neville... that isn't real!"
Harry, who had already heard Dudley explain how the Mirror of Erised worked, hurried over to calm him down.
"Calm down."
"I saw my parents in there too, but it was fake. It was only an illusion."
"What Potter said is right."
An unfamiliar voice sounded behind them.
Harry turned and saw a figure standing in one corner of the room, both familiar and strangely unfamiliar at the same time.
It was the one professor who had never given them any extra lessons...
Professor Quirrell.
The same professor who had fainted from fright during the Halloween troll incident.
But at that moment, he looked completely different, standing by the door with a posture that had nothing to do with his usual behavior.
"I truly did not expect to find you here, Potter."
His words came out without the slightest stutter.
The trait that had once defined him had vanished completely.
Quirrell stared darkly at Harry, but he seemed to be deliberately keeping the back of his body hidden, and his expression also looked strange.
Professor Quirrell was the final test?
No.
Something was wrong.
Suddenly, Harry's scar began throbbing violently, along with an intense burning sensation.
It felt as though his head were about to split open.
"Harry Potter!"
For an instant, Harry thought he had heard another voice.
A voice that definitely did not belong to Quirrell.
"Let me see him! Face to face!"
Quirrell's expression turned utterly unnatural. He looked as though he wanted to say something, but the owner of that voice was someone he could not disobey.
So, slowly, he began unwrapping the thick turban around his head.
Then he turned around.
And revealed the back of his head.
That was nothing like the back of a normal person's head.
There was another face there.
A twisted, grotesque face.
"Look at what I've become!"
That distorted face began to speak.
Not through vocal cords, because it had nothing of the sort. Its mouth simply opened and closed in a way that was far too horrifying to watch.
"All that remains of me is shadow and vapor. And all of it was because of you, Potter!"
Voldemort.
Or rather, only the remaining fragment of Voldemort's soul.
"It was because of you! All because of you that now I'm forced to share someone else's body!"
"But I never imagined you would appear before me like this."
As he said that, Voldemort actually took control of Quirrell's body from within, raised the wand, and moved it lightly. In an instant, countless ropes appeared in the air and wrapped Harry layer upon layer.
Faced with that overwhelming gap in power, Harry had no ability to resist at all.
Experience, magical power, knowledge... in every one of those aspects, he was infinitely beneath the other side.
Even if the other side was only a fragment of a soul.
Voldemort studied Harry carefully, but he could not see anything in him that set him apart from any other young wizard.
"Look at you. No matter how I look at it, you're just an utterly ordinary, mediocre little boy. So why... why was it you who killed that perfect me eleven years ago? That powerful me?"
His voice was full of confusion and disbelief, but his eyes were already overflowing with naked killing intent.
That was an incredibly rare opportunity.
The chance to kill Harry Potter.
Taking advantage of the fact that Voldemort was distracted speaking to Harry, Neville discreetly slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out a few seeds.
A spell struck his wrist.
The seeds all scattered to the floor.
"Don't try little tricks in front of me, boy."
Only then did Voldemort turn his attention to Neville.
And the moment he saw him, his red pupils contracted.
"Neville... Neville Longbottom!"
He had recognized who Neville was.
And that dragged back some extremely unpleasant memories.
As everyone knew, wizards did not believe in science.
They believed in prophecy.
And in that old prophecy about the one who would defeat the Dark Lord, there had not been only Harry.
There had been one more person who also fit the conditions.
In other words, in theory, there should have been two possible children of prophecy capable of defeating the Dark Lord.
One was the world-famous Harry Potter.
The other was Neville Longbottom, standing right in front of him now.
In theory, the Chosen One was one of the two.
It just so happened that Voldemort had chosen Harry.
Voldemort looked at the two of them with an extremely complicated expression.
Even as the Dark Lord, for the first time, something like hesitation and panic began to stir inside him.
'Is that prophecy going to come true all over again?!'
Now he would have to choose again?
And die again?
No!
Never!
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